


i am in love with what we are (not what we should be)

by nirav



Category: Power Rangers
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-01
Updated: 2017-05-01
Packaged: 2018-10-26 02:16:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10777374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nirav/pseuds/nirav
Summary: the fake married au that nobody asked for





	i am in love with what we are (not what we should be)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lescousinsdangereux](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lescousinsdangereux/gifts).



> a very happy birthday to [lescousinsdangereux](http://archiveofourown.org/users/lescousinsdangereux/pseuds/lescousinsdangereux), who never technically asked for this but is getting it anyways.

_i am in love with what we are_  
_not what we should be_  
 _and i am, i am starstruck_  
_with every part of this whole story_

* * *

 

Trini isn’t confident in the permanence of too many things in life-- Zack being a pain in the ass, her parents being irritating, Billy being an angel-- but she’s always been unequivocally confident that nothing will displace _find shiny rock, become superhero_ as the most unexpected event in her life.

Kimberly Hart is part of her life, though, so honestly, she probably should have been more on guard when it comes to unexpected events.

 

* * *

 

It goes like this:

    * Trini goes to college.  They all go to college, except for Zack, who disappeared and left a hole in all of them for six months right after graduation when his mother passed.  He came back eventually, showing up at Billy and Jason’s dorm unannounced and empty and the five of them spent a week crammed into a pile of limbs in a tiny dorm room, watching Netflix and eating pizza until Zack was ready.
    * Kim tries to goad Trini into being her roommate in her beautifully oversized suite, the one her parent’s threw money at because thank _God_ Kimberly had finally decided to shape up and go to college.
    * Trini turns her down because, frankly, she’s fairly certain she can only handle so much direct proximity to Kimberly Hart on any given day and most of that is already allocated to grappling in the pit and the way Kim _always_ manages to stay closer than is strictly necessary.
    * Trini has a roommate who mostly cares about playing Warcraft 21 hours a day and it works out beautifully so she rooms with her for two straight years.
    * Semesters march by, filled with classes and jobs at libraries and playing superhero constantly, and then it’s the summer before her junior year and Trini, still at school working for the student-run computer repair shop, gets a text from Kim, who’s interning with a congressman in DC.
    * __Hey so do you want to get married??__



 

Trini stares at her phone for ninety seconds straight and wonders why, in all honestly, she’s ever surprised by anything that Kim says.

 

* * *

 

“You didn’t text me,” Kim says in lieu of a hello when Trini answers the phone.  

“I was at work,” Trin says with a shrug, locking the office behind her.  “Some of us are good employees, princess.”

“You didn’t text me.”

“I assumed you were high?”

“I get drug-tested, you know,” Kim says with a scoff.  “Nice try.  Tell me why you didn’t text me back.”

“You mean why didn’t I respond to _do you want to marry me_?”

“Obviously.”  Kim’s rolling her eyes, it’s clear, even through the phone.

“I--”

“Okay, so,” Kim says with a deep breath.  “My parents got audited.  Hardcore.  They owe like a bajillion dollars in back taxes because their accountants fucked up and they’re appealing but money is really tight, so they can’t cover my tuition anymore.”

Trini slows to a stop in the middle of the sidewalk.  “I--are you okay?”

“It’s whatever,” Kim says after a long moment.  “It’s too late for any scholarships, so I applied for financial aid, right?  But they said I can’t get anything good unless I have a kid or am married.”

“That-- what?”  Trini starts walking again, pulling her jacket tighter around her.  It’s not remotely cold but there’s a chill down her spine anyways because if Kim doesn’t come back to school then the Rangers are--

“I have to get married,” Kim says, cutting through Trini’s mild panic spiral.  “Or have a kid, but that seems like a worse choice.  So marriage it is.”

“And you want to--”  Trini stumbles to a stop once more.  “You want to marry _me_?”

“I mean, obviously,” Kim scoffs.  “You’re my best friend, and we’re both in the Rangers, so I have nothing to hide from you, and we spend all of our time together anyways, so why wouldn’t I want to?”

“Um,” Trini says faintly.  “Oh.  What?”

“Do you want to get married?” Kim says carefully.  “It’s not a big deal, you know.  We don’t even have to tell anyone.  But if I’m married I can get a massive bump in financial aid, enough to cover an apartment, and obviously we can get divorced after college.”

“Divorced,” Trini echoes.  “Aren’t those expensive?”

“Actually,” Kim says, and Trini slumps down onto a bench because she can _see_ the broad smile on Kim’s face from across the country.  “I looked it up.”

“Of course you did,” Trini mutters.  

“The only expensive part of a divorce is the legal and attorney fees.  Filing for a divorce isn’t actually expensive, it’s just the lawyering to divide up assets and custody and stuff.  Which we won’t need.”

“Right,” Trini says absently.  “Easiest thing ever.”

“Is that a yes?”

“You work for congress right now, are you sure you should be planning to defraud the federal government?”

“Psh. Details.  Come on, Trin, marry me.  Please?”

That’s it, right there.  The moment Trini crumbles.  Beacuse Kim is sneaky and clever and smarter than the rest of them combined except for Billy, probably, because Kim can get anyone to do anything if she tries hard enough, but she never tries with them.  They’re _family_ , the five of them, and Kim doesn’t say _please_ with family.  

“Okay,” Trini says with a groan.  “Okay.”

The cheer from DC is enough to make her ear ring, and Trini flops sideways across the bench.  

 

* * *

 

“You’re doing _what_?”

“Moving to an apartment,” Trini says with a shrug.  She comes home every summer for a week before the semester starts, at her mother’s insistence.  It’s always pure joy, just like this.

“We paid for a dorm--”

“The school is going to refund you.”

“I’m not paying for you to live in some crappy shoebox--”

“It’s not crappy,” Trini says, wrinkling her nose.  “And I already did the math, I can cover my half of the rent and bills with the money I got over the summer.”

“Your half?”

“Yeah, I’m rooming with Kim.”  Trini shrugs again.

“Christ,” her mother mutters, casting her eyes up at the ceiling.  “Do you have to live with--”

“Yes,” Trini says flatly.

“What did I do to deserve this?” Her mother asks the sky.  Trini spears the last bite of enchilada off of her father’s plate-- he’s too dumbstruck and glancing back and forth between the two of them to notice-- and swallows it whole.

“I gotta go,” she says, clearing her plate into the kitchen.

“Where?” her mom shouts.

“Out,” Trini shouts back, disappearing out the door and setting off at a jog towards the quarry.

“Hey, wifey,” Kim says, falling into step at her side with easy strides.

“Don’t you dare,” Trini says.  

“Hey, we’re married now.”  Kim punches her in the arm.  “How’d the parents take it?”

“Like champs.”  Trini keeps her eyes forward on the trail in front of her and not at all on the cleavage Kim’s displaying.

“Your mom shit a brick, didn’t she?”

“Small brick,” Trini deadpans.  “More like a pebble.”

“Imagine what she would do if she found out we were married,” Kim says conversationally.

“I hate you,” Trini says.  She puts on a burst of speed and sprints up the side of the quarry, leaving Kim to catch up.

“You can’t say that, we’re married!” Kim shouts after her.

 

* * *

 

The apartment is small, but serviceable.  It’s two blocks off campus, closer to the computer science buildings than the law library that Kim likes to live in, and across the street from a Starbucks.  

“Could be worse,” Kim says, dropping a box in the living room and turning in a circle.  The walls are freshly painted, even if the floors look old; the air conditioner appears to have two settings of _off_ and _arctic_ ; the kitchen is the size of a large postage stamp and the bathroom the size of a small one.  

“I get the big room.”  Trini hipchecks Kim out of the way and deposits her suitcase in the larger bedroom.  It has an extra foot of space to maneuver, the other room just large enough for a bed and dresser and potentially a single floor lamp.  

“But you’re so tiny, what do you need--”

“I get the big room,” Trini says without turning around.  She pauses and cranes her head around.  “Are you going to make dinner?”

“What?”

“Some wife you are,” Trini says with a smirk.  It’s enough to make Kim blink owlishly at her for long seconds before her face morphs into a glare, and Trini laughs, loud and bright, because it’s not every day that someone flusters Kimberly Hart.  “I think this married thing is going to work out _great_.”

 

* * *

 

The boys come over the second night back on campus.  Zack takes up the entire futon in the living room and leaves Jason and Billy to fight over the last chair right up until Trini claims it instead.

“The floor is shockingly comfortable,” Kim says drily, settling in front of Trini’s chair and dropping her head back into Trini’s lap.

“So, uh,” Billy starts, crosslegged on the floor and squinting at Kim.  “I was at work this morning and looking something up for the registrar and I--”

“Why the hell are you listed as _married_?” Zack yelps over him.

“What he said,” Billy says.  He props his chin in his hands and stares wide-eyed at them.

“Because I’m married,” Kim says mildly.  

“You’re married,” Jason says.  “Since when?”

“Since about two months ago,” Kim says with a shrug.  She wiggles around to get more comfortable and resettles with her legs crossed and tips her head back into Trini’s lap once more, glancing up to where Trini is glaring at her.

“What?” Billy says, even more loudly than Zack.  “To whom?  And why?  And-- how?”

“You forgot _where_ ,” Kim says.

“Kim!” Zack’s voice has that edge to it, the whining one, the one where he’s approaching dog whistle-levels, and Trini throws a pillow at him.

“Seriously, who are you--”

Kim pushes her head further back into Trini’s lap and smiles.  Billy gets it first, jaw dropping dramatically, and then Jason mumbles out _oh_ and Zack falls off the futon.  Trini flops her head back and stares at the ceiling.

“Seriously?”

“Seriously,” Kim says.  “It’s not a big deal, guys, I needed some financial aid because of my parents and it’s so much better if I’m married, so.”

“You needed financial aid so you got married,” Zack repeats.  “To _Trini_.”

“Hey,” Kim says indignantly.  “What does that mean?”

“Dude, she’s going to kill you in like a _week_ ,” Zack says gleefully.  “You guys are going to go nuts living together.  This is _amazing_.”

“I hate all of you,” Trini mutters, even though she hasn’t moved a muscle since Kim’s head tilted back into her lap.

 

* * *

 

Trini studies in a Starbucks on the edge of campus every Tuesday afternoon with Billy.  They’re the only ones in computer science classes and stake out a corner table weekly to trade notes and study in silence.  It’s easy, the easiest thing, really, that Trini has done since a quarry exploded around her.  Billy is the most calming of the group, a steady heartbeat and an inability to push for understanding about why Trini is married to Kim, why Trini never wants to try dating, why Trini’s favorite way to spend time together is with her headphones on.

Billy is immediacy.  Billy is perspective.  Something about carrying the dead body of a friend from a marina to a mine will do that.

“Jason said something,” Billy says abruptly, in the middle of copying a section of code from Trini’s notes.

“He does that,” Trini says without looking up.

“About you.”

“Yep.”

“Well, about Kimberly, actually,” he goes on.  He sets his pen down on the table carefully, lining it precisely into its spot.  “He said he saw her talking to a girl and that they were--”

“Got a point, Billy?” Trini’s fingers dig into her leg.  The pressure keeps her jaw loose and shoulders relaxed because she was with Jason when they saw Kimberly leaving the gym with a girl with short hair and a  sharp smile, their shoulders too close and eyes too intentional to be anything but flirtatious.  Kim had come home late that evening and made a beeline for the shower, flopping down afterwards onto the couch and dropping her still-wet hair into Trini’s lap to complain about a group project she was working on.  She was there and she had nearly broken her water bottle and she didn’t need Billy to--

“Can I ask you something?” Billy says, in that way he does, where the question runs into the next and is less of a request and more of an announcement.  “Why did you marry her?”

“She asked me,” Trini says.  “For financial aid.”

“Why didn’t she get a scholarship or--”

“She asked me,” Trini says again.  She glares across the table for a short moment, and Billy shuts his mouth so quickly his teeth clack audibly together.  “Billy, she asked me for help.  So I’m helping her.”

The door to the Starbucks clangs open to interrupt them and-- of _course_ \-- it’s Kimberly Hart, looking around for them and scurrying over as soon as she lays eyes on Trini.

“Hey, Kimberly, we were--”

“In a sec, B,” Kim says, grabbing at Trini’s wrist.  “I need you to roll with me for the next five minutes, okay?”

“What?”  Trini stares down at Kim’s hold on her arm, somehow missing it when Kim moves right up against her side.

“Someone told the financial aid office I wasn’t really married,” Kim mumbles.  “They talked about revoking my financial aid and they won’t _say_ anything but one of the damn admins has been following me all day, so can you please just roll with this and pretend that you like me enough to be dating me, okay?”

“What does that even--”

“Act now, talk later,” Kim hurries out.  “Is there a redheaded stick figure who looks like someone shit in her yard in line right now?”

“Yes!” Billy says helpfully.  “She’s looking over at us, do you want me to--”

“Not now, Billy,” the both of them grind out.

“Please?” Kim says, hand tight on Trini’s wrist, and Trini’s never realy been able to say no to Kim, not even when they didn’t know each other.  Sometimes it means she’s falling off a cliff, a real cliff, into a cave full of water with four strangers; sometimes it means she’s falling off a cliff because Kimberly Hart is asking for her to sell the fact that they’re married and she can’t do anything but nod and mumble _okay_ and let Kim slide even more into her side.

“Don’t freak out,” Kim mumbles into her ear, just before her hand curls along Trini’s jaw and pulls her around to kiss her.

“Oh,” Billy says, faintly.  “Should I be here?  I don’t think I should be here.  I’m going to go.”

It echoes somewhere in the background that Trini can’t pinpoint, because Kim-- _Kim_ \-- her teammate, her best friend, the pink ranger, hyperconfident and beautiful and too much, always too much, is kissing her, and it’s too much, too something, too--

Over.  Too over.  It ends with Kim pulling back and her fingers trailing along Trini’s jaw, dropping down onto the table to wind their fingers together, asking loudly how her day was and what she wants Kim to pick up at the grocery store on the way home.

Across the Starbucks, a not-subtle redhead stares long and hard at them, and Kim asks how studying is going and kisses Trini’s temple, warm and soft like waking up halfway with an hour left before the alarm goes off, and Trini shudders with her entire body.

 

* * *

 

“Hey,” Kim says, appearing at Trini’s side and grabbing her hand easily.  

“What are you doing over here?”  

Kim is never this close to the computer science building, perpetually concerned about the smell of unwashed computer nerd wafting too close to her.  

“Can’t a girl just come see her wife before work?”

“Don’t call me that,” Trini mumbles, pulling at her hand until Kim lets go.

“Hey, what’s up?”

“What?”  Trini lengthens her stride and curses Kim’s longer legs when it doesn’t have any actual effect.  She could run, but Kim’s always been faster, and she’s fairly certain that _avoiding emotional complications_ falls into the category of using her powers for personal gain, even if it wouldn’t be caught on about a hundred security cameras around campus.  

“Trin, come on,” Kim says, pulling at her elbow until Trini has to stop or judo-throw her in the middle of the sidewalk.  “What’s wrong?  You’re crankier than usual.”

“I’m not _cranky_ ,”  Trini says.  “I’m just running late.”

“You don’t have any more classes today and you have two hours until work, your comp sci study group doesn’t meet on Mondays, and you only train with Zack on Thursdays.  So why are you--”

“I’m not cranky,” Trini says again.  “I just have to go.”  She grabs at Kim’s wrist, harder than she really needs to, and yanks her hand away.  

“Trini,” Kim says, soft and quiet and very much not herself, and Trini’s stomach turns over and her feet falter.  Kim’s shoulders are slumped, her hands hanging at her sides, and Trini swallows against the ache pushing at her chest.

“I just have a big exam coming up, I have to study,” she says.  “I’ll see you at home.”

“Okay,” Kim says with a sight.  “See you at home.”

There’s no exam and Trini has nowhere to be, but she disappears into the library anyways, writing and deleting programs until her stomach doesn’t hurt anymore.

 

* * *

 

“I’m not avoiding you.”   

They’re at home, after Trini’s shift has ended.  Kim is curled on the futon with a laptop and a textbook, working on a paper, and Trini is sprawled across the armchair with a beer and her own books.

“What?”

“I’m not avoiding you,” she says, picking at the label on her beer and deliberately not looking anywhere near Kimberly’s furrowed forehead or the way she’s absolutely biting down on her lower lip.  “I’m just--really busy, and trying to set up for an internship next semester.  It’s a lot.”

“Okay,” Kim says quietly.  “As long as you’re sure.”

“Yeah,” Trini says.  “All good.”

“Okay,” Kim says again.  She shuts her laptop and discards it and the textbook on the futon, standing and stretching.  “I’m going to crash.”

Trini mumbles out a goodnight.  Kim pauses to press a kiss to the top of her head as she goes by on the way to her room, and Trini glares harder at her book and pointedly doesn’t acknowledge it at all.

 

* * *

 

The party is, unsurprisingly, terrible.  It’s too hot and full of people that Trini is pretty sure need to live on the moon with Rita Repulsa, and the beer is bad and the music worse, and the whole thing is too juvenile and too college and far too stupid.

“This is stupid,” Trini says, punching Jason in the arm.  

“It’s _awesome_ ,” Zack says.  He drains his beer and crumples the cup into a ball, hurling it across the room and over the heads of everyone else.  It ricochets off of Kim’s shoulder and into the face of the guy-- tall, blonde, All American jawline, and a polo shirt the holds too tight to his chest and arms-- who’s leaning towards her with an expectant grin.

Kim shoots a blank glance over her shoulder to them and Billy points wildly at Zack.  Her suitor straightens up and glares and stalks over, Kim trailing lazily behind him.

“What was that?” he starts, shoulders back and chin up to loom over Zack.  

Zack blinks up at him, and Jason sighs.  Trini leans back against the wall, tugging Billy back with her and handing him a new drink.  Zack can fight his own battles.

“Is this guy bothering you?” He looks back to Kim and shoves at Zack’s shoulder.  “Think he’s your boyfriend or something?” The smug set to his jaw and the condescending push he adds to Zack’s other shoulder is enough to make Jason bristle, but Kim just rolls her eyes and laughs, clear and quiet and unperturbed

“Of course Zack isn’t my boyfriend,” she says, tossing her hair.  She slides past him, putting herself bodily between him and Zack for a brief moment, and right over to curl a hand around Trini’s elbow and kiss her loudly on the cheek.  “This is Trini.  My wife.”

Trini chokes on her beer and Billy lets out a cheer; Jason sighs, Zack elbows the guy in the stomach with a smirk, and the blond stalks off towards the keg.

“Not cool,” Trini mumbles, jerking her elbow away and wiping at her cheek.  “I’m going home.”

“What’s wrong?”  Kim’s still got ahold of her arm with one hand, and the other comes up to join it, holding gently onto Trini’s wrist just before it disappears into her jacket pocket.  “Are you okay?”

“I’m going home.”  Trini jerks her arm free and drops her still-full beer into the trash and shoulders past Jason on her way to the door.  It’s cool outside, summer giving way to fall, and the clear air falls easily against her overheated skin.

“Hey!”  Kim’s familiar footsteps follow after her, and Trini stubbornly shoves her hands further into her jacket and keeps walking.  “Trini, come on, will you wait up a sec?”

“I’m going home,” Trini repeats.

“Then I’m going with you,” Kim says, matching pace with Trini and pushing her own hands into her own jacket, even as her elbow brushes against Trini’s.  “You want to tell me what’s wrong?”

“No,” Trini mutters.

“Come on,” Kim says, elbowing her.

“No.”

“Trini--”

“Just _stop_ , will you?” Trini says, stopping abruptly.  “Just stop, okay?  Stop acting like you get to pick and choose when this is something that matters to you, okay?  You don’t get to just-- just decide it matters when it helps you and then doesn’t matter when you don’t want to.”

“Pick and choose what?” Kim says slowly.  Her hands twitch towards Trini and Trini jerks back, her shoulderblades colliding with the wall of a building that she hadn’t realized was behind her because Kim is looking at her, open and earnest and confused with wide eyes like she always has and Trini has never had a defense against this.  

“You asked me to marry you,” Trini says, pushing out a slow breath and holding her jacket around her ribs.  “And you use it when you need your financial aid officer to buy it, or when you don’t want some frat boy to hit on you, but then you go off hooking up with other girls and--”

“Is that what this is about?” Kim says, eyes wide and forehead crinkling.  “Jesus, Trin, why didn’t you just--”

“Didn’t just what, pretend like I didn’t care?”

“Why didn’t you just tell me that you _did_?”

“I--what?” Trini falters and blinks rapidly at Kim, who’s looking back at her like all of this is a mess she can clean up with just a few words and--

“I like you, you idiot.”

\--maybe she can.

“You what?”

“You realize the _easiest_ thing I could have done would have been to do this with Zack, right?  Because he’s not a student.  But I wanted to do it with _you_ , because--”

“Because what?”

“Because I want to be around you more than anyone else,” Kim says, rolling her eyes.  “Because I like you.   _Obviously_.”

“Because you--why didn’t you just--”

“Would you have been okay with living with me this year in any other situation?” Kim challenges.  “Trini, you run away from _everything_.  If this was all I was going to get then, well, that’s all I get.”

“What does that mean?”  Trini’s jacket is too tight around her ribs at this point because this entire night is going not at all how she expected and this can’t possibly mean what it looks like it means.  The quota of impossible things that happen to her was tapped out already, between becoming a ranger and marrying the girl who had ruled their high school for financial aid help.  

“It means that I like you, dumbass,” Kim says with a huff.  “Like, not as a friend and not as a teammate, but I like you and want to date you.”

“But why didn’t you just _say_ that?”

Kim rolls her eyes and throws her hands up.  “Seriously?  I’ve been flirting with you for _three years_ and you’ve been completely oblivious.”

“No you haven’t,” Trini says automatically, even as Kim folds her arms over her stomach and raises her eyebrows.

“I asked you out to dinner after graduation.  At a romantic Italian restaurant.”

“That was all of us!”

“Because _you_ invited the boys,” Kim says.  She holds up one finger.  “I also tried to get you to room with me.”  Two.  “I invited you to come spend a week at the beach with me when my family was going”  Three.  “I spent a week eating ice cream and sulking publicly when you went out with that girl from the school of music.”  Four.  

“Okay, okay,” Trini mumbles.  “Stop it.”

“I like you,” Kim says again, inhaling slowly and staring up at the sky.  “I figured you knew and didn’t feel the same way.”

“But you asked me to _marry_ you.”

“Marry and divorce me after school, technically, and, again: just because I wasn’t going to get to be with you didn’t mean I didn’t want to be _around_ you all the time, Trin.  Things are still better around you than anyone else.”

“Oh, Trini says faintly.  “Oh.”  She fidgets with the zipper on her jacket and tugs on the hem of her shirt, her hands too uncertain to stay still.  Kim reaches out and latches onto her wrists, holding them still and stepping closer and closer and she’s _right there_ and Trini’s pulse pushes too fast against her sternum.  

“So does all of this mean that you _do_ like me?” Kim says, far too confident for Trini to handle, because Kim is _always_ confident and Trini is always a gay mess of nerves when she’s this close, so Trini just nods because words are a lot more than she can muster at this point.  

“In that case, then,” Kim goes on, her hands easy over the heavy pulse in Trini’s wrists.  “Do you want to go out on a date with your wife, then?”

“Oh,” Trini finally says.  “Yeah.  Yes.”  Her stomach turns over again, because this is Kim, who has people falling over themselves for her attention; Kim, who hunted her down in the library during finals last year when she hadn’t slept in two days and brought her a sleeping bag and tamales she had gone all the way back to Angel Grove to pick up from Tini’s dad; Kim, who’s looking at her like there’s never been anything more important than this moment, this spot of sidewalk, this conversation.

Kim, who’s pushing forward and holding onto Trini’s face and kissing her, slow and soft and wholly unconcerned with the fact that they’re on the sidewalk outside of the music school, married and kissing for the first time.

“Oh,” Trini says again, over the unsteady rhythm of her heartbeat and the way Kim’s fingertips have worked their way into her hair.  “You realize this is totally upside down, right?”

“So is a bunch of high school rejects becoming superheroes.”  Kim shrugs.  “Where’s the fun in doing things the right way?”  

Trini pulls on her hips and kisses her wife again.


End file.
